When many individuals are performing sit-up type floor exercises as part of an exercise regimen, it is oftentimes difficult to maintain a proper sit-up position where the legs and/or feet are in contact with the floor. While the individual can extend his feet beneath a heavy object such as a piece of furniture or can enlist the aid of an assistant to maintain the feet in contact with the floor, these expedients are not always available and may be somewhat uncomfortable to the individual.
Various devices have been developed over the years in attempts to enable the individual to properly and comfortably perform sit-up type exercises. Many of these devices are of the type which engage the lower portion of a door to provide an anchor for the one or more of the individual's feet. An example of such a device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,050,652 to Fleming which comprises a pair of steel stirrups which are releasably secured by a pair of screws in the space between the bottom of a door and the floor. Other anchoring devices for sit-up type exercises which have foot engaging means mounted on U-shaped brackets which are adapted to be secured to the bottom of a door by clamping means are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,116,434 and 4,185,816 to Bernstein; U.S. Pat. No. 4,212,458 to Bizilia; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,468,022 to Wu. Additional devices for facilitating sit-up type exercises which are adapted to engage the lower portion of a door are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,825 to Hult; U.S. Pat. No. 4,176,835 to Aziz; U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,726 to Schleis and French Pat. No. 2,544,617 to Moreno.
While all of these devices would appear to function satisfactorily for their intended purposes, the devices seem to suffer from at least one drawback of less than desired comfort for the user, complexity in installation, potential damage to the door surfaces and/or inability to easily adjust the devices to comfortably fit a variety of users. In addition, these devices may not be easily portable such that the device could not be easily taken along when travelling.